Patience

I've never really thought of myself as particularly impatient, but it seems God decided I needed more patience.  Everything here is a test or lesson on patience.  I'm reminded of this as I try to type this blog.  I pulled up the internet and waited 5 minutes for it to load the page, it wouldn't load so I tried a different browser.  After refreshing the page 10 times I finally got to this page.  This isn't an unusual thing, anything on the internet, especially skype, takes lots of patience.  Going anywhere teaches patience too, due to island time.  If you don't know what island time is it goes like this.  If they honk the horn for us to get in the car for church at 8:30 we probably won't be leaving until at least 9.  If we are supposed to have a meeting at 9, it probably won't start until 10 or 10:30.  The only thing that opporates on "American Time" is school; the greatest test of patience of them all.  After explaining the same problem on the board thuroughly over half the class will individually ask me to explain it again.  Asking once for the freshmen to take a seat never works, and no matter how many reminders I give their is always someone who claims I never mentioned a test today. I speak and no one listens so I have to explain the same thing over and over again.  Those of you reading this who are parents or teachers are probably laughing at me thinking, "Get used to it".   These things have been building my patience for the last 10 weeks, but something new was added this week; patience with God.
Sometimes it seems perfectly clear what God wants for us.  It's like it's lined up and everything is falling into place perfectly.  Other times it seems impossible to figure out what He wants and where we are supposed to be.  Even more confusing though is when it seems like you are doing exactly what He wants but you get shot down.  That's what happened to Pam today.  Pam is like family now.  We have been living on Yap together for over 2 months.  We share a room so we end up talking way too long every school night. Pam has to go home.  She broke the news to us today and we all were crying within the next minute.  Just like the rest of us, Pam loves it here.  She loves the school, her 3rd grade kids, the church, and the island in general.  She can't recover properly though, she is getting worse and the doctors here aren't qualified to figure out why.  She leaves in two days and everyone is going to miss her.  We haven't stopped praying though.  The side of me that still needs more patience wants to know what's taking God so long.  Why not just heal her?  She is here where He sent her trying to do the job He sent her to do.  Why not just heal her and let her stay?  But, the other side that has been learning patience is beginning to see that things aren't always that easy.  Sometimes you have to wait.  More then anything we want Pam to stay.  We will keep praying for a miracle; but I think this is one of those times we have to trust God.  Even though it's not working out the way Pam hoped, He is in control and I know He has a plan; we just can't see it right now. 
Back tracking a bit, this week went pretty good.  I got up early Sunday to go barefoot through the jungle clearing a trail with machetes with my seniors.  It's a class funraiser for them and turned out to be lots of fun! Using a machete is much harder then it looks though, "Ms! Swing it as hard as you can!".  The school week was busy as it was the last week of the quarter.  We had to have finals at the end of the week.  Everyday their were numerous students making up tests, trying to make up work, and freaking out about the final.  We enjoyed a lovely Canadian Thanksgiving in honor of Pam and Sophie on Monday.  Come Tuesday Andrea was sick.  It seems like the flu at first, but now we know it is Dengue fever.  She really needs prayers for recovery! This meant we were short staffed again.  We were all switching tasks and covering classes throughout the week.  Everyone was relieved to make it to Friday.  I was completely shocked to recieve every single final project in the sophomore class.  I don't think I've ever gotten the same assignment from the whole class before! I had them create their own country for Geography, they did a really good job and I have a huge stack of new, funny, countries in my room.  The seniors turned in their music projects as well.  I put them in groups and had them put a song together and record it.  I wasn't expecting much but they spent their lunch times for two weeks putting it together, way more then I asked them to do. They sound amazing! One of the groups even wrote their own song! I love seeing them get excited about something, I really want to do more with the things that really interest them.
I realize I haven't said much about the church in a while.  The church keeps us just about as busy as the school.  We plan and run vespers every friday night as well as the juniors/youth sabbath school before church.  Sabbath school used to be really small, but today we had 16 kids! Eight of which where high schoolers who aren't members of the church.  It is so exciting to see them coming to church :).  We are involved in all sorts of other aspects of the church as well.  At home you are usually asked to do something for church.  Someone will call and request for you to do special music in three weeks or to lead worship, not here.  Here you just find your name in the bulletin, it's always a surprise!Children story, praise team, special music, prayer, scripture reading, chorister; you name it, we do it.  Not all of them every week though, they try to alternate.  Today I was the pianist again, always an intersting experience.  I think I'm finally figuring when I'm supposed to play everything!  The big event with the church starts tonight.  We will be having a 3 WEEK evangelistic meeting at both the church and the school.  We are helping with both locations so we have a schedule alternating our jobs.  I am not really sure how we are going to do the meetings, finish first quarter grades, plan and grade for school, and have a work bee for the school this Sunday... but I've seen God work out harder circumstances since we've been here so here it goes!
Prayer requests this week: Pam (of course), leaving is going to be one of the hardest things she's ever had to do.  We are praying for healing for her, she has been sick way too long.  For Andrea, Dengue fever can be really bad.  We are praying she will be able to recover and the mosquitos won't spread it to the rest of us.